In a silver halide color photographic material a color image is formed when the element is exposed to light and then subjected to color development. The color development results in imagewise reduction of silver halide and production of oxidized primary amine developer. The oxidized primary amine developing agent subsequently reacts with one or more incorporated dye-forming couplers to form dye in an imagewise fashion.
Many photographic materials, especially color negative photographic materials, contain not only imaging couplers that serve merely as sources of imaging dyes but also image modifying couplers that after coupling with oxidized developer release a photographically useful group (PUG). Image modifying couplers that release an inhibitor group are referred to as DIR (Development Inhibitor Releasing) couplers. If the inhibitor is linked to the coupler via an intermediate timing group that may or may not serve to delay inhibitor release, it is sometimes referred to as a DIAR (Development Inhibitor Anchimeric Releasing) coupler. The term DIR couplers will be used herein to encompass both DIR and DIAR couplers.
DIR couplers perform one or more useful functions including control of contrast or gamma, sharpness enhancement, granularity reduction and color correction via interlayer interimage effects. The latter function is particularly important in modern color photographic materials. For example, DIR couplers are widely used in the blue-sensitive, yellow dye-forming layers of color negative films, not only for improved sharpness (or acutance) but also to reduce development and dye formation in other layers, especially adjacent green-sensitive, magenta dye-forming layers. This type of interlayer interimage effect can help correct for unwanted absorptions of the yellow dyes in areas of the negative that contain magenta dyes. It also allows a film to be constructed with higher color contrast while maintaining proper neutral contrast. To date, combinations of yellow image dye-forming couplers and DIR couplers have not provided satisfactory interlayer interimage effects.
There are many references to yellow dye-forming couplers in the art. Among them are U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,973,968 of Fujihara et al, 4,022,620 of Okumura et al and 5,066,574 of Kubota et al, which disclose the synthesis and use of yellow dye-forming couplers with hydantoin derivatives as coupling-off groups and Canadian Patent 1,039,291 which discloses yellow dye-forming couplers with oxazolidine-2,4-dione coupling-off groups.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,066,574 of Kubota et al discloses acylacetanilide yellow-dye forming couplers with sulfonate substituents, among many other substituents. International Patent WO 91/08515 of Leyshon et al discloses a sulfonate substituted pivaloylacetanilide coupler (coupler 6), among other couplers, in combination with high-chloride silver halide emulsions and bisphenol compounds. U.S. Pat. No. 4,026,709 of Piller et al discloses specific acylacetanilide yellow dye-forming couplers with sulfonate substituents, among other substituents. European Patent Application 447,969 of Shimura et al discloses a cyclic acylacetanilide yellow dye-forming coupler with a sulfonate substituent. None of these patent publications disclose the conjoint use of a sulfonate substituted acylacetanilide yellow dye-forming imaging coupler and a DIR coupler nor do any of them disclose the unexpected advantages associated with such conjoint usage.
It is a problem to be solved to provide a photographic element in which a blue-light sensitive silver halide emulsion layer has components associated with the layer that permit superior interimage effects.